Letters to my niece- Ethics and the War on Terrorism

Dear Sarah,

You were only four years old when the planes went down on September 11, 2001. For most of your life, the United States has been embroiled in the war on terror. As you enter your teen years, you may begin to ask, “What do I believe and why do I believe it?” You might even begin to ask questions about ethics and human rights such as “When does the end justify the means?” and “What is freedom?” and “Why do terrorists use innocent people as targets?” I hope that you will ask questions like: “What is the purpose of humanity?” and “Is it possible to lose our humanity?”

I was reading an article today by Maryann Cusimano Love. The article, called Morality Matters: Ethics and Power Politics in the War on Terrorism, was written only a few months after the twin towers went down. Love reminds us that violence in response to violence does not address the root causes of terrorism. If you want to know the root causes, you must begin to ask the question, “Why?” Why did Osama bin Laden attack the United States? What did he hope to gain? Why did he believe that killing us was a good idea?

Our war on terrorism is a losing battle because we are trying to stamp out terrorism (attacking innocent civilians or non-military personnel) while we engage in conventional warfare which kills even more innocent civilians. Love does not argue for non-violence only, but she does make the point that underestimating the long-term impacts of violence and warfare is a huge mistake with devastating effects.

There are some who would argue that we were compelled to go to war, that we had to respond to the terror attacks with force, that we couldn’t just “sit back and let them [the terrorists] get away with murder.” Others would say that the only language Osama bin Laden understood was violence, so we had to use military force against him and his terrorist network, al- Qaeda.

You’ve probably heard by now that “all is fair in love and in war.” In other words, rules don’t apply in these circumstances. Another way to say this is “the ends justify the means.” But do they? Is it okay to torture prisoners of war? Even if the information they have will help you stop an attack on more innocent civilians, is it okay to torture them? According to some people, torture and inhumane treatment of others is completely justified if it leads to the prevention of more attacks. Is it? Is it okay to torture someone if you think one of their friends might hurt someone else? Don’t terrorists use these very tactics? How are we different if we treat people the same way?

When we resort to inhumane treatment of others, when we torture and humiliate, when we use weapons and bombs, when we invade another country because we are afraid that they might attack us first, we have begun to lose the battle where the cost is our humanity. I do not say we should just let murderers and terrorists get away with their actions, or that we should stand by passively while they kill others, but we must maintain our humanity, our compassion for others-- even our enemies. If we do not, if we resort to violence and hatred, we will become our enemies. We cannot, we must not abandon the Judeo-Christian concept of the universal, inherent dignity of all human life or we, too, will find ourselves on the slippery slope of questionable morality.

Viktor Frankl (2006), even after experiencing the horrors of the Nazi death camps, still believed in the transcendence of the human spirit. He wrote about the kind of “world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)…” (Man’s Search for Meaning, p.50). If we are not careful, we, too, will fall into that same Machiavellian mentality and morality.

We can be better. We can make ethical choices which do not destroy life. We can choose a better path. Indeed, if we are to live in peace, we must.

In peace and hope and love,

Aunt Gigi